Fred Karlin was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer of more than one hundred scores for feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

s and television movie

Television movie

A television film is a feature film that is a television program produced for and originally distributed by a television network, in contrast to...

s. He also was an accomplished trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

er adept at playing jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, classical

Classical music

Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...

, rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, and medieval music

Medieval music

Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...

.

Born Frederick James Karlin in Chicago, Illinois, he studied jazz composition with William Russo

William Russo

William Russo may refer to:*William Daddano, Sr., aka William Russo*William Russo...

 and earned a Bachelor of Arts

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 degree from Amherst College

Amherst College

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

, where he wrote his String Quartet No. 2 as his honors thesis

Thesis

A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...

. Following graduation, he moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, composing and arranging for various bands, including those of Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

, Harry James

Harry James

Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...

, and Chubby Jackson

Chubby Jackson

Greig Stewart 'Chubby' Jackson was an American jazz double-bassist and band leader.Born in New York City, Jackson began at the age of seventeen as a clarinetist, but quickly changed to bass....

. During this period he also composed and arranged for documentaries

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

, the Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall

Radio City Music Hall is an entertainment venue located in New York City's Rockefeller Center. Its nickname is the Showplace of the Nation, and it was for a time the leading tourist destination in the city...

 orchestra, and television commercials.

In 1962, Karlin scored a record album for Columbia

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 of extracts from the comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

 Peanuts

Peanuts

Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...

, performed by actress Kaye Ballard

Kaye Ballard

Kaye Ballard is an American musical theatre and television actress, comedienne, and singer.-Life and career:Ballard was born as Catherine Gloria Balotta in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Italian American family, the daughter of Lena and Vincent James Balotta.Ballard established herself as a musical...

 as Lucy and songwriter Arthur Siegel

Arthur Siegel

Arthur Siegel was an American songwriter.Born on December 31, 1923 in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, he grew up in Asbury Park, New Jersey...

 as Charlie Brown. The innovative score was performed by Karlin entirely on childrens' musical instruments and toys

Toys

Toys is a 1992 comedy film directed by Barry Levinson and starring Robin Williams, Michael Gambon, Joan Cusack, Robin Wright, LL Cool J, and introducing Jamie Foxx as Baker. The film failed at the box office at the time of its release, despite its impressive cast and lavish filmmaking. Levinson was...

.

Karlin began his film career with Up the Down Staircase

Up the Down Staircase (film)

Up the Down Staircase is a 1967 drama film about the first, trying assignment for a young, idealistic teacher played by Sandy Dennis. Tad Mosel wrote the screenplay adaptation of the novel of the same name by Bel Kaufman.-Cast:...

in 1967. Following in quick succession were Yours, Mine and Ours

Yours, Mine and Ours (1968 film)

For the remake of this film starring Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo see Yours, Mine and Ours Yours, Mine and Ours is a 1968 film, directed by Melville Shavelson and starring Lucille Ball, Henry Fonda and Van Johnson...

, The Sterile Cuckoo

The Sterile Cuckoo

The Sterile Cuckoo , released in the UK as Pookie, is a theatrical release feature film released by Paramount Pictures. It tells the story of an eccentric young couple whose relationship deepens despite their differences and inadequacies, and stars Liza Minnelli, Wendell Burton, and Tim...

, and Lovers and Other Strangers

Lovers and Other Strangers

Lovers and Other Strangers is a 1970 comedy film based on the play by Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna. The film features an ensemble cast including Richard Castellano, Gig Young, Cloris Leachman, Anne Jackson, Beatrice Arthur, Bonnie Bedelia, Michael Brandon, Harry Guardino, Anne Meara, Bob Dishy,...

. For the latter he wrote the music for the song "For All We Know"

For All We Know (1970 song)

"For All We Know" is a popular song written for the 1970 film, Lovers and Other Strangers, by Fred Karlin, Robb Wilson and Arthur James . It was originally performed by Larry Meredith....

, which won the 1971 Academy Award for Best Original Song

Academy Award for Best Original Song

The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...

 and was a major hit for The Carpenters

The Carpenters

Carpenters were an American vocal and instrumental duo, consisting of sister Karen and brother Richard Carpenter. The Carpenters were the #1 selling American music act of the 1970s. Though often referred to by the public as "The Carpenters", the duo's official name on authorized recordings and...

. The Sandpipers

The Sandpipers

The Sandpipers were an American easy listening trio/quartet, who carved a niche in 1960s folk rock. They are best remembered for their cover version of "Guantanamera", which became a transatlantic Top 10 hit in 1966, and their Top 20 hit "Come Saturday Morning" from the soundtrack of the film The...

 charted

Billboard charts

The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...

 with another of his compositions, "Come Saturday Morning

Come Saturday Morning (song)

Come Saturday Morning is a popular song with music by Fred Karlin and lyrics by Dory Previn, published in 1970. It was first performed by The Sandpipers on the soundtrack of the 1969 film The Sterile Cuckoo starring Liza Minnelli, and it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original...

." Other Karlin scores were nominated for three Academy Awards, including one for the movie The Little Ark (Based on a novel by Jan de Hartog

Jan de Hartog

Jan de Hartog was a Dutch playwright, novelist and occasional social critic who moved to the United States in the early 1960s and became a Quaker.- Early years :...

) in 1972, his wife, Marsha, was also nominated for the same film.

Although Karlin continued to score films on occasion (The Baby Maker

The Baby Maker

The Baby Maker is a film directed and co-written by James Bridges and released by Twentieth Century Fox.-Plot:Barbara Hershey portrays a flower child who is hired to have the baby of a middle-class couple ....

, Westworld

Westworld

Westworld is a 1973 science fiction-thriller film written and directed by novelist Michael Crichton and produced by Paul Lazarus III. It stars Yul Brynner as a lifelike robot in a futuristic Western-themed amusement park, and Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as guests of the park.Westworld was the...

, Loving Couples

Loving Couples (1980 film)

Loving Couples is a 1980 American romantic comedy film written by Martin Donovan and directed by Jack Smight.The plot offers a comic spin on adultery. When Greg crashes his sports car, doctor Evelyn comes to his rescue, and the two soon are engaged in an affair...

), the bulk of his work was in television. His compositions were nominated for the Emmy Award

Emmy Award

An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...

 eleven times, and he won for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman

The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a 1971 novel by Ernest J. Gaines. The story depicts the struggles of African Americans as seen through the eyes of the narrator, a woman named Jane Pittman...

in 1974. Other notable television projects include Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway

Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway

Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway is an NBC made-for-television movie. It premiered on September 27, 1976. The movie is about a 15-year-old girl named Dawn Wetherby who runs away from home to Hollywood, California and becomes a prostitute to support herself. Dawn finds herself taken under the...

, Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn

Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn

Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn was a NBC made-for-television movie, that was first telecast on May 16, 1977, and was directed by John Erman. It was a sequel to Dawn: Portrait of a Teenage Runaway, which came out the prior year,...

, Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter

Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter

Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter is a 1979 television film drama directed by Milton Katselas.It stars Bette Davis and Gena Rowlands as a mother and daughter, long estranged who attempt to repair their relationship when the daughter is diagnosed with cancer...

, and the Minstrel Man, for which he received an NAACP Image Award

NAACP Image Award

An NAACP Image Award is an accolade presented by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....

.

Karlin wrote three books about film composition, On the Track: A Guide to Contemporary Film Scoring (1990), Listening to Movies: The Film Lover's Guide to Film Music (1994), and 100 Great Film Scores, which was published posthumously in 2005. He also wrote a reference book detailing and cataloguing the thousands of recordings the Edison Company

Thomas Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...

 distributed between 1914 and 1929.

Karlin died of cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 in Culver City, California

Culver City, California

Culver City is a city in western Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 38,883, up from 38,816 at the 2000 census. It is mostly surrounded by the city of Los Angeles, but also shares a border with unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Culver...

. He is survived by his wife, Megan Wells-Stagg Karlin; a brother, Kenneth; a son, Eric; two daughters, Wendy Karlin and Kathryn Velasquez; and four grandchildren and preceded in death by his son Kristopher who was murdered by Wendy Karlin in 1978. Kristopher's death was a great blow to Fred, as he relayed in a September, 1978 article in the defunct Los Angeles Herald Examiner. Wendy served a short term sentence in a mental hospital.

External links

• Sisaro, Ben. Fred Karlin, 67, Film Composer, New York Times, May 10, 2004 (obituary; retrieved January 31, 2010)
• Fred Karlin papers at the University of Wyoming
  University of Wyoming
  The University of Wyoming is a land-grant university located in Laramie, Wyoming, situated on Wyoming's high Laramie Plains, at an elevation of 7,200 feet , between the Laramie and Snowy Range mountains. It is known as UW to people close to the university...
  
   - American Heritage Center
  American Heritage Center
  The American Heritage Center is the University of Wyoming's repository of manuscripts, rare books, and the university archives. Its collections focus on Wyoming and the Rocky Mountain West and a select handful of national topics: environment and conservation, the mining and petroleum industries,...